Latest Update (By Jacque)

Lots of progress made in these last couple of weeks. Adam and I spend last week clearing debris from the basement and garage. I also tackled the dead rose "trees" (seriously these thorny bastards were taller than the crepe myrtles we had in Houston).

The house had only one owner and I'll refer to him as "AH." Apparently AH was either an engineering genius or a mad scientist (and also a bit paranoid). Adam discovered some of AH's handiwork under the basement stairwell - a DC voltage meter, a series of buttons and an exposed circuit board with several LED lights. For grins, Adam turned on the voltage meter (which worked) and then began to press several of the buttons next to it. The LED lights came on and I started getting a bit nervous about it, backing-up and advising Adam to turn it off! It looked like the nuclear launch code keypads in your old cold-war movies. We believe the wiring under the stairwell may have been AH's homemade alarm system. We found homemade keypads installed on the front/back doors and what looked to be break detectors (wires attached to metal tape around the perimeters of window panes) on all of the windows as well. Another cool thing we found was what we believe is a homemade battery charger. We also found out that AH installed the doorbell in the broom closet to ring out in the detached garage so that Mrs. AH could just ring the bell when dinner was ready (we're guessing AH spent a lot of time tinkering in his garage).

Kendall insists the basement is haunted. I told her that was preposterous. She said somebody died here! Then Adam came home and informed me that the next door neighbor told him the old guy died there...

The "Before" Pictures

Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of the severity of our situation:

Exterior view from the back yard - Nothing a little paint can't fix.


The kitchen - Understandable why Jacque said she would not move in until it was updated.


Have no fear, new cabinets have been ordered.


New appliances ordered as well.


Main floor hall - Classic early '60s ranch


Main floor bathroom - I could not fit the pink tub in the picture. Not much we can do about this at present.


Upstairs middle bedroom - Note the paint matches Kendall's socks (not for long)


Basement family room - Did I mention we have our very own stripper pole?


Basement hallway leading to workshop / laundry and guest bedroom - A wall has already been built to hide the furnace


Guest Bedroom - new carpet & paint coming soon

Basement workshop


New pictures to be added as work progresses.

We Finally Closed!!! (Long But Worth The Read)

For those who don't know the full story, let me start at the beginning... After leaving Houston for Denver and going through the painful process of trying to sell a home (that we had bought emotionally) in a housing market downturn - we decided we were going to try and buy low/sell high this time around. With the economy in the crapper and interest rates at historic lows, we decided the time was right to try again. On our way home from the synagogue on morning, we drove by an old house with two different colors of brick, and all of the wood painted in a hideous shade of aqua. The house had a For Sale sign in front, and just for grins, we pulled over to see the price.

The price was significantly lower than we expected to pay in the neighborhood, but just from looking at the outside, we could tell the house needed a lot of work. We did not have a realtor yet, so we called the listing agent, and set up an appointment. The house had never been updated, but we could not get away from the price. After much discussion, we decided that location was important to us, and we felt the area would really appreciate in value. We also decided that with the uncertainty of the economy, it made a lot of sense to have a low mortgage payment, and update with cash. Jacque said she could not live in the house until the kitchen had been updated, and we would also need to add on a master suite as soon as the funds became available.

After talking to a mortgage broker, we found out about a special type of FHA loan where you could finance renovations (more on that later). We asked around and and found a realtor (more on that later), and made an offer on December 30.

Although our realtor had been recommended, we began to get the feeling that the guy was out in left field. He made multiple mistakes on our contract and our real estate attorney, mortgage broker and the selling agent conferred as well (not to mention what we found out on Google). Long story short, we fired him. Karen, the listing agent, agreed to represent us as well, and pay our attorney.

Then Jacque's boss called and told her that her position was being transferred to Louisiana, but he agreed to keep her on through March 2, and dangled her job in front of her like a carrot knowing we were set to close on our house February 18. After his blackmail attempts failed, we kept our fingers and toes crossed that her employer wouldnt sabbotage our closing.

Then came the delays to our closing dates... three times the mortgage company delayed the closing date. Apparently, there is only one lender in the entire country providing the rehab loans, and they were a bit behind in their underwriting. We moved the closing to the 26th, which was put off again until the 27th. Jacque's last day was scheduled for the 27th. She had already found a new contract job, but could not tell this to the lenders, as they do not like to see "instability".

Since the closing was delayed (again) - we decided to "play hookie" from work on the 26th and head to Breck for a powder day, where I ended up in ER thanks to an out of control snowboarder who ran into me and knocked my knee cap down to my shin (a patello-femoral dislocation).

Finally we made it to closing on the 27th! We arrived at the title company's parking garage, and received a call from our agent advising that the title officer in charge of our closing was in the hospital, and no one else at the title company knew anything about the closing. We insisted that we find a way to get it done, the title company was able to find a substitute, and we proceeded. The bank was not able to fund that day, but we were told a wire would be sent the following Monday, at which point the title would officially transfer.

Monday afternoon, I received an email from Tom, our mortgage broker asking me to call him. Apparently the lender decided to wait until after we closed to verify Jacque's employment, the very day she started her new job. The lender said they could not fund the loan. Tom said he would see if there was a way to get them to accept Jacque's new position, which would probably be difficult, as it was a contract temp to perm position. We pretty much gave up, and were trying to figure out a way to salvage some of our earnest money.

The mortgage broker called me back a couple days later, and said he found a mistake the lender made and I qualified to close without Jacque's income. So Friday the 13th of March we closed again. Tom and Karen both seemed very excited, but Jacque and i both had an "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude. We got a call the morning of the 13th advising the money had been wired to the title company, and we were ready to close.

So despite the fact that our realtor was a convicted felon, Jacque lost her job, the lender delayed our closing multiple times, I had another freak accident and ended-up in ER, our closing agent ended up in ER, we thought we closed once but didnt and then finally, finally, we closed on Friday the 13th... now we are the proud owners of a new project.